Thermal expansion of a glassy alloy studied using a real-space pair distribution function

Thermal expansion of a glassy Cu55Hf25Ti15Pd5 alloy studied by using reciprocal space functions is verified using a real-space pair distribution function. The experimental results obtained by real-time diffraction during heating in a synchrotron beam and their Fourier transformation processing to derive radial distribution functions indicate that both reciprocal and real-space distribution functions give good agreement in the calculation of thermal expansion data. In addition to providing structural information, these findings indicate that the change in the average atomic nearest-neighbor distance evaluated from the variation of the position of the main broad diffraction maximum can provide good thermal expansion data for metallic glasses.